Writing articles to earn income is something that I have been doing for some time on PFI. I have written several sponsored posts in the past few months for SocialSpark and PayPerPost. I have had good success in writing articles for both of these social networks to date, and have earned a decent amount of income by writing these posts. However, one of the downsides of writing articles for these social networking sites is that you don’t get to choose the topic and must follow the guidelines laid out by the advertiser. While I try to select articles that fit with the overall personal finance theme of this site, it can be difficult making it work. In addition, once your posts have been approved, you get paid once. Since these advertisers will not allow you to put any other 3rd party advertisements within the post (such as Kontera), you are limited to one payment for your work. That really is not passive at all!

There are two aspects of writing articles to generate income on eHow that I really like when compared to SocialSpark or PayPerPost. The first item is that you get to write about what you know and like. Take my first article I mentioned above. I have experience trading options and really like to talk about it, so I wrote an article about how to use covered call options to generate income. The second item is that you have the opportunity to get paid over and over. I consider any article written on eHow as a residual income opportunity. While you are not guaranteed to get any payments for your work, you do have the opportunity to get paid for your work many times depending on the popularity and demand of your articles.

Do you write for eHow, SocialSpark, PayPerPost, or any other sites that pay you for your work? What types of experiences do you have? I would like to hear back from my readers to get their opinions on this topic!

Income Streams earning money

• Stock Dividends: $43.50 - My quarterly dividends were not included in July so this amount dropped. Starting in August, I will also post a 3-month rolling average to get an average monthly dividend amount that can be tracked over time.
• Deep In the Money Option Calls: $168.99 - I have not made any additional Deep In the Money Option Calls transactions since July.
• Savings Account Interest: $25.68 - Self-explanatory
• Selling Covered Call Option Contracts: $160.97 - While it is not 100% passive, this is one income stream that works well for me right now.
• Sale of Stock: $206.98 - I sold some stock over the course of July as a result of some Covered Call options contracts being called (i.e. BAC).
• CD Interest: NA - I earned some CD interest in July but was not able to calculate it yet. I hope to quantity this stream in the future.
• Prosper Interest: $27.89 - I saw a $3.00+ increase over June for one of my favorite alternative income streams!
• Credit Card Rewards: $0.00 - While I did not earn any income during the month of July in this category, I still earned points which will be redeemed in the future.
• Kontera: $8.77 - This is one of the most passive streams of income I currently have.
• SocialSpark: $16.51 - While this is not a very passive income stream, it allows me to generate some extra income while I grow my other streams.
• Pepperjam Network - $32.00
• Niche Blogs: $2.18 - I hope that this income stream will be one of my fastest grower’s in the future. I have been spending a lot of time working on this category.
• CashCrate: $3.65 - I earned a small amount for completing some survey’s in July.
• UpDown: $.04 - I beat the S&P 500 in July and earned some income. Not a lot, but every cent counts!
• PFBuzz: $.50 - This was from referring a new member to PFBuzz in the month of July.

GRAND TOTAL INCOME - $697.66

Income Streams NOT currently earning money

• Ebates - My family does not do a lot of shopping online, so this may fall off of my list at some point after the upcoming holiday season.
• Domain Parking - I have a few sites that I am testing out domain parking. Not sure how it is going to work yet or if I will see any return on my investment.
• PayPerPost - I expect to see some income generated through this stream in September.
• MySurvey - I have earned some points using MySurvey over the past several months. Once I earn 1,000 points, I can cash this into income.
• Commission Junction - I plan on using Commission Junction on some of my niche blogs but have not used it too much as I am using Pepperjam for PFI.
• Linkworth - I have an account setup, but have not really used this too much yet.
• Big Crumbs - See Ebates description above.
• eBay - Nothing to note yet.
• Amazon Affiliates - Same as eBay
• Rental Property - No rental properties yet but is on my long-term plan.
• eHow - I am starting to write my first eHow article this month so I think this will show up in the top list in the coming months.
• Etsy - On the list for review.
• Tax Liens - Same as Rental Property.
• Adding a Roommate - Our roommate has moved out so this will fall off the list.
• Pharmacy Shopping - I am keeping this on the list as I do generate some income from shopping at these stores. However, it is very difficult to quantify this income.

July Passive Income Analysis
I saw a decrease of ($191.93) between June & July. This was an expected drop based and I still have a goal to bring in $1,000 by next May (2009). I also have a longer range goal (3 - 4 years) set of $4,000 - $5,000 per month in passive income which will more than cover our monthly expenses and give my family and I the financial freedom we desire.

How do you track your passive or extra income earned? Do you have goals set that you hope to eventually reach?

Weekly Updates
I continue to search and test out new themes for PFI. While I am happy with the current look, I am now focused on building my readership using SEO. I have been doing a lot of studying up on the topic and hope to soon implement some of the things I have learned.

I am also using the concepts I have recently learned about SEO on several niche sites I have created. The plan is to set up these sites, grow them for awhile, and then let them generate income on their own. Does anyone have any experiences with setting up niche blog sites they would like to share? I am open to any and all comments on the topic.

Articles I liked this week
Here are some of the articles I enjoyed reading over the past week -

1 - Dawn at Fighting Foreclosure wrote about other personal finance blogs that she reads. While I was very pleased that she included PFI in the list, I wanted to point out that there are some other great sites that I didn’t even know about until this post.

2 - Bible Money Matters posted about his other sites he maintains to generate some alternative income. One of the sites is dedicated to designing logos. He designed the logo for PFI and I wanted to pass this recommendation along to anyone who needs a high quality and low cost logo for their site!

3 - The Family CEO discusses meeting a monthly earnings goal on eHow. I have finally started writing my first eHow article and will share the details of my experience when I am done.

Have an excellent week!

Recently, I have been posting a lot about potential passive income opportunities by using coupons and shopping at pharmacy’s. As part of this experience, I have been able to work various deals to purchase diapers and baby wipes at the same price or better than BJ’s. Since this was the main reason to keep the membership, I began to question if it was worth the yearly fee to renew. Below is a breakdown of why I thought we should renew and why I thought we should NOT renew our yearly membership to BJ’s.

Why we should renew

• Meats - While our family does not eat a lot of meat, we have found that meats tend to be cheaper on average at wholesale club’s compared to grocery stores. For example, we typically purchase boneless/skinless bags of frozen chicken breasts for around $2.25 per pound at these places. On average, it is difficult for us to find the same value at our local grocers where we pay between $3.00 - $5.00 per pound for the same product.
• Coupons - BJ’s is unique compared to it’s competitors (at least I still think so). They send out their own coupon books every month to use and allow you to combine their coupons with other manufacturer coupons which increases your savings. We typically knock off several dollars in savings by combining both sets of coupons for diapers and baby wipes.
• Bakery - They have a good bakery and we have purchased several cakes from them for special occasions (i.e. birthday, baptism, etc.). We have also bought fresh breads and baked goods from them which have been cheaper in most cases then the local grocers.
• Diapers - You can still get good deals on diapers, baby wipes, and other baby products by shopping at these wholesale clubs.
• Gas - Many of these wholesale clubs have gas stations that offer gas a few cents cheaper than the local competition. I have never actually purchased gas at BJ’s but often would buy gas at Sam’s Club in the past.

Why we should NOT renew

• Membership Fee - The membership fee to renew at BJ’s is $45 for the year.
• Gas - As I mentioned above, many of these wholesale clubs offer gas prices that are a few cents cheaper than local competition. While I have found this to be the case most times, I have also found on more than one occasion that if you go a few miles further away from these stores, you can get cheaper gas than these clubs. I often find gas about $.05 cheaper a few miles away from the store.
• One Day Memberships - From time to time, BJ’s and other wholesale clubs offer one day free memberships to come and try out the store. Since we go to BJ’s about once per month and there are these offers on the same frequency, we can actually shop at the store without spending the yearly fee.
• Pop/Soda - I just had to include this one. I recently noticed that pop (soda as some call it), was selling for 2 12-packs for $8.00! This is crazy. Any given week, you can find pop cheaper in a pharmacy or grocery ad. I am amazed to see people stocking up on pop when we are at BJ’s.

In the end, we choose to let our membership expire. I could not justify spending the extra $45 yearly membership. Any costs savings on diapers and baby wipes would not equal the fees over the course of 12 months. In addition, using the free one day memberships from time to time will allow us to continue to shop at the store.

Do you belong to any of these wholesale clubs? Do you make up for the yearly membership fees in savings at the store?

A few weeks ago, we were shopping at the local Cost Plus World Market and came across a table and chairs set that fit exactly what we wanted. It was a simple set made out of rubberwood that had a distressed look to it. We fell in love with it and decided we would wait until it went on sale to make the purchase. Well this week, Cost Plus World Market has all of their furniture on sale so we headed over to the store to check things out. When we got there, we noticed signs hanging everywhere for opening up a store credit card and receiving 10% off your first purchase. This concept of opening up a store credit card is nothing new to us or most people. By opening up this card, we had the potential to save over $135.00 on top of the sale price. That was a nice option for opening up a card, but what really caught my eye were two other benefits from opening up this card -

• No Interest 1 year - I love 0% interest! Anytime I can get no interest on a purchase, I begin to salivate. When I saw the sign the wheels immediately began to turn in my head thinking of how I can make this work. Instead of putting $1350.00 on one of our other credit cards, we could open up the new card, knock down the price to $1,215.00 (plus tax) and take that money and earn interest off of it.
• Rewards - In addition to the no interest for 1 year, the card will also give you $15.00 back on store gift card for every $300 you spend. So a $1,200+ purchase would bring back $60.00 is store gift cards.

The Plan
We ended up opening up the store credit card to receive the benefits mentioned above and made the purchase. Since we already have the money available for this purchase and we have the option of not paying this expense for 1 year without interest, I am considering this a passive income opportunity. My plan is to take $1,200+ and either put it into a CD or in my new ING account depending on where I can find the best interest rate. This will bring in an additional $30+ dollars over the next 12 months of true passive income. While it is not a lot of money, every little bit counts and adds up over time.

Do you use special rates, store credit cards, or other lines of credit to stretch your money out?

To give you an idea on how much I have cut back in landscaping expenses, in the 6 months that we have been in our new home, I have spent a grand total of $18.00 on landscaping. This is a brand new home which means it has very little curb appeal, so $18 does not really go a long way. This expense included a bag of grass seed and a few perennials to add some color to the front of the house. On a side note, I don’t buy annuals for the obvious reason. While I understand annuals typically produced the best colors, they don’t come back and I consider it a waste of my money. I need to see a multi-year return on investment! I will note that our home did come with sod in the front yard (not in the back) and some landscaping in the front which has helped out a lot.

The other day my father called me up with two very frugal opportunities. Given our very limited landscaping monthly budget, I jumped at the following opportunities -

Patio Stone
My parents recently hired a company to come in and rip up an existing patio they had in their back yard from a previous owner of the home. The old patio was made from large sections of flagstone but was uneven which caused some drainage issues. My parents wanted to put in a brick paver patio in place of the flagstone. When the demolition crew came in to start ripping up the existing patio, my father asked them what they do with all the materials. One of the workers told him that it would be going to a landfill and that it was already factored into the quoted price. Luckily my father, understanding my passion for landscaping, called me up and asked if I would be interested in the flagstone. I told him absolutely and the crew came up immediately to our house and dropped it off. It actually saved my parents money because the company waived the fee to dump it in the landfill and also reduced the amount they paid to take it to the landfill. Our house was about 15 miles closer than the landfill, so they pro-rated the expense. At the end of the day, I felt very proud of our freecycle opportunity. We saved my parents money and got some excellent flagstone that I will be using to create a raised flower bed in the front our our house. Most importantly, we prevented a bunch of usable natural materials from going into a landfill!

Free Plants
As part of my parents backyard project, they dug up several overgrown perennials that had invaded their backyard. As part of my father’s call earlier in the week, he also asked if I was interested in any of the plants he cut back? Of course, I accepted his offer and now have several wonderful perennials to plant in my soon to be new raised flower bed in front of the house.

Carnivals
I took the week off from participating in any carnivals. Instead, I focused on creating new and growing existing passive income streams. I spent a lot of time with my niche sites trying to get them up and running. I am curious if anyone else has had any success generating income from any niche site?

New Theme
I also spent some time researching a new theme. I did a good job of hacking up my existing theme and have spent a lot of time researching how to increase my organic traffic. One of the action items to do is to replace my current theme with one that is built for Search Engine Optimization. You will begin to see some changes take place in the next few weeks. I also need to clean up some things on the site that have been bothering me for a while but I keep putting off.

Articles I liked this week
Here are some of the articles I enjoyed reading over the past week -

1 - Bible Money Matters discusses people who blame others for their financial woes. I think we all know someone who fits this scenario.

2 - Dawn at Fighting Foreclosure provides an update on her mystery shopping income stream.

3 - Moolanomy discusses the benefits and disadvantages of becoming a part-time entrepreneur.

4 - The Family CEO provides us with an update on using eHow as an alternative income stream and reaching an August goal.

5 - The Frugal Dad provides a list of 10 truths on frugal living.

Have an excellent week!

HIGHLIGHTS

• Medical Expenses - We did not incur any medical expenses during the month of July which allowed us to increase our future expense fund by $175.00. The current expense fund for our Medical Expenses is currently over $200.00 which is a nice cushion for any unexpected expenses that we may see in the rest of 2008.
• Utilities - Once again, our utility bills (gas, electric, water) came in well under budget. We did see a 64% increase in our energy bill due to running the A/C more, because of the warmer weather. We also saw this increase because of our house guests we had during the month of July. The Natural Gas bill dropped by 21% and the Water/Sewer bill dropped by 20% compared to the previous month. Unfortunately, I think these 3 expense categories will see increases in the upcoming month because of the weather and because of our new roommate.

CONCERNS

• Gas - As we saw a peak in oil prices during the month of July, so did our gas budget. We spent $13.32 over our budgeted amount and had to dip into our expense fund. Below you will see that I have taken out $200 in expenses for the month and the extra $13.32 has come out of our expense fund. As I mentioned above, I think we saw a peak in our gas expenditures for some time so I don’t see any issues in this category for the next several months.
• Groceries & Entertainment - We saw an 8% increase in the past month in our grocery & entertainment expenses. Some of this increase was a direct result of our house guests we had in July and some of it was due to our new roommate. In fact, we actually spent more than the amount shown in the expense column. This number was adjusted based on money our houseguests gave us for spending several weeks with us. I have adjusted the totals accordingly.
• August - I think we will see August come very close to break-even at this point. I can say that all of our utility bills will be higher than July. I am not sure yet on the grocery & entertainment category, but I don’t believe it will decrease. Our gas budget will decrease which will help the bottom line. After August, I am predicting that we will begin to push our budget in the right direction in an ongoing effort to increase our monthly cash flow.

July 2008 - Budget Review

Final Thoughts
Once again, I will be focusing on the grocery and entertainment budget. Our houseguests are now gone, as well as our new roommate (future post to come on this one). Because of this, our bills are going to get back to normal. In addition, I believe that we will start to see some positive results in regards to my posts on making money by shopping at pharmacy’s and an increase in coupon usage.

How do you keep track of your weekly/monthly finances? Do you have a budget setup to track your cash flow?

One of the more passive income streams included on the list of alternative income streams is Pepperjam Network. To date, I have earned a decent commission considering that PFI is still very young and the small amount of traffic that I am currently getting. I have investigated several other affiliate marketing programs and even tried some for awhile. In the end I keep coming back to Pepperjam Network because of the service that they can provide. They have an excellent list of available advertiser’s and provide very good customer service.

The growth of Pepperjam Network is truly an amazing story. Inc. Magazine ranks them as one of the top 100 fastest growing privately help companies in the United States. This is actually the third consecutive year that they have been included on this list. They are also ranked as the #1 fastest growing affiliate marketing network. Pepperjam Network also has an amazing list of advertisers available for fellow publishers like myself to fit with the overall theme of their site. I have used advertisers including: Foreclosure.com, eBay!, and Review Me just in the past few months. They have over 500 clients available.

If you have a blog or website and are looking to enter a relationship with an affiliate marketing program, I would recommend investigating Pepperjam. Join Pepperjam Network and Receive a $10 Sign On Bonus.

Today I would like to provide the monthly status on my Prosper loan that I took out earlier this year. For a history of activity, please check out the following post - Loan Status - July (2008). When I last posted the status of my investments using this $1,000 Prosper loan, I had accumulated the following assets -

• Stock - I purchased 46 shares of HTE (Harvest Energy Trust).
• Cash Generated - As a result of selling Covered Call Options against my HTE (Harvest Energy Trust) position, I have generated $40.20 in positive cash flow. It is important to note that selling a Covered Call Option contract requires 100 shares. I have combined my $1,000 Prosper loan with additional funds to meet the 100 share requirement.
• Remaining Cash - I had $14.55 remaining in leftover cash after making the purchase of HTE (Harvest Energy Trust).
• Dividend Shares - I received .535 shares of HTE (Harvest Energy Trust) stock through dividend DRIP payments. The total number of shares owned as of July was 46.535.

Current Status
This past week I have received an additional monthly dividend payment for July which was reinvested back into the stock using DRIP -

• July Dividend Payment - I received approximately .632 shares of HTE (Harvest Energy Trust) as a result of the July (2008) DRIP payment. This brings the total number of shares owned up to 47.167.

As of yesterday (August 19, 2008), I estimate that value of the assets listed above at -

• Shares - 47.167 @ $20.13 per shares = ~$949.47
• Cash - $54.75
• GRAND TOTAL - ~$1,000.22

It is nice to report that I bounced back after a 17% drop last month in value and reported an increase of .8%. While the percentage is small, I will take it considering the drop in oil prices. The total payments required over the course of the 3 year loan are $1,095.07, so I am now ($90.85) behind. I will continue to reinvest all monthly dividends back into my total shares which will help me increase the value of this loan. Any jump in oil prices should quickly push me back over this amount.